Uninvited Houseguests
by RugitusAstra
Summary: House guests are annoying at best. At worst, they're a team of SAS men forced on you by Alan Blunt. When an injured Alex returns from a mission, Alan Blunt sends K-unit to his house as "bodyguards". As if he needs bodyguards. Set a few years after Scorpia Rises, America didn't work out. My first story, feedback appreciated, good or bad.
1. Prologue

Neighbors stared as four muscled men walked up the steps of the Rider house. It was only one in many strange occurrences that all centered around that house and the boy who lived there. Oh, they all knew the Rider boy, or at least of him. The newer residents of the area heard the stories constantly. A sweet boy, they all said. Very polite.

Then his uncle died. It wasn't long before the boy was gone, no one knew where. His housekeeper-turned-guardian, Jack Starbright, didn't go with him. When he returned, battered and bruised, the excuse was an illness of some sort. Oh, everyone believed them, after all, getting ill after that much stress was understandable.

Then he left again.

And again.

And again. Each time coming back more and more withdrawn. Less and less friendly. And then came an absence that brought his guardian with him. But she didn't come back. The Rider boy only returned for the funeral then packed his bags and left. Supposedly for America. He didn't speak a word. Those who knew Jack well enough to attend the funeral said that the boy was unnervingly cold. Empty was the word many of them used. As empty as the Rider house.

Until a year or so later. When he came back. And terrorists attacked his school. And his best friend was killed. After the funeral he shut himself up in the house and didn't come out for over a week. Someone called the police, asking why he was home alone. They came out to the house and were promptly sent away. How the boy had simply "sent them away" no one knew, and the police wouldn't tell. Soon the absences returned. The boy radiated danger and was avoided like the plague.

Of course everyone wondered. But no matter how curious they got, no one dared to get involved.

Death lived on that street.

Death preyed on that house.

Death followed that boy.


	2. Chapter 1: Reunion

**A/N:** Okay, so I fudged some facts for this one. In order to go the direction I wanted to, I changed some things from Snakehead so that Ben and Alex didn't really interact that much. It's been a really long time since I read Snakehead, so I don't remember how much of their relationship is actually canon, but in my story Ben worked with Alex, but was never told any details about Alex, not even his full name.

Anyway, there's a little bit of language in this chapter, nothing much, but consider yourself warned.

To everyone who reviewed: Thank you all so much! You guys are great! I was kind of nervous about posting this, but you guys put that to rest. Thank you!

* * *

Wolf pushed the doorbell with his thumb. He (along with the rest of his unit) was _extremely_ curious. Not that he would ever admit it.

All Blunt had told them was that MI6's top agent, a man named Alexander Rider, needed a some extra protection from a threat that had recently arisen and K-unit had been chosen. His unit was there with him, leaning over his shoulders so they could see who answered the door. It seemed they were out of luck. A recorded message started playing.

"This is Alex Rider, if you're hearing this I'm probably out. Leave your name or come back later. If Blunt sent you, I would suggest not leaving your name and not coming back. I can take care of myself. Beep." Wolf hit the doorbell again. Blunt had promised he'd be here.

"This is Alex Rider, if you're hearing this-" Wolf hit the cancel button and looked over his shoulder. His teammates shrugged. Wolf knocked, maybe the doorbell was broken. The unit waited.

Finally, the door moved.

"Seriously, how many times do I have to send the message? I. Can. Take-" The speaker froze as he saw his visitors. K-unit's mouths hung open.

"Cub?" Snake said, disbelief coloring his voice. A second later the door was slammed in their faces. After a pause shouting could be heard on the other side. Wolf only heard bits and pieces, "Blunt" "not a chance" "why on Earth" "if you think" "no way in hell". The shouting stopped suddenly. Wolf only heard one word, but the force it was said with made him take half a step back.

"Bastard." A few seconds later the door opened once again. "Get in." K-unit glanced at each other, and stepped through the open door.

Cub lead them into the living room (tossing a phone none-too-gently onto the counter on the way), where he immediately laid down the law.

"No one goes in the office or my room. No one bothers me when I'm busy. No questions. Don't use all the hot water. If we can get through this without me ever seeing any of your faces, I will consider it a success. Are we clear?" K-unit stared at him, dumbstruck. "That goes for you, too, Daniels. Don't think you're getting any special treatment." Then he promptly disappeared up the stairs. As soon as the shock wore off, K-unit erupted in noise.

"What-"

"How-"

"-A joke?"

"You've got to be kidding-"

"I mean, I knew he was involved a while ago, but-" All heads snapped towards Fox.

"You WHAT?!" Wolf said.

"I went on a mission with him once, I dunno, a few years ago."

"And you didn't tell us?!"

"Well, you didn't tell us about the whole Point Blanc thing!" Fox shot back.

"How did you-?" Wolf sputtered.

"What the heck are you talking about?" Eagle demanded.

"Everyone just SHUT UP!" Snake yelled.

Silence.

Snake never yelled. Ever. They all stared at him. "Fox, could you calmly explain what you're talking about?"

"Uh… yeah. Umm, I sort of met up with Cub on that Australia mission I went on when I was with MI6."

"What? He was living in Australia?" Eagle questioned.

"No, I think he was working with the ASIS."

"WHAT?!" Snake, Eagle and Wolf shouted.

"I don't know, okay? No one told me much, but he was definitely the main agent." Fox said. "He was good, too, better than I ever was."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Snake asked.

"Until this morning, none of you had near enough clearance! Everything about this kid is classified, I didn't even know his last name until today. Wolf met him, too." Everyone turned to Wolf. He sighed.

"It wasn't that long after he was at training. Remember when they split us up after Eagle was injured, and I got shot in France?" They nodded. "He was the agent inside the school. I never thought- I never would've guessed that Blunt would send him on other missions! He was almost killed! Multiple times! He snowboarded down a mountain on an ironing board!"

"He what?" Eagle asked.

"Snowboarded down a mountain on an ironing board!"

"He whitewater kayaked down a river in a pontoon from a sea plane. While dodging bullets."

"He was being shot at in France, too." As the implications of that information sank in, the room fell silent.

"MI6's top agent," Eagle whispered.

"We've all heard of him." Fox said.

"Silent." Snake added.

"Faster than a snake."

"More clever than anyone has the right to be."

"Young. That's what everyone says, no wonder they don't say how young. What is he? Twenty? Not much older." Eagle guessed. Snake and Fox agreed.

"Damaged." Three heads whipped around to look at Wolf. "Don't deny it, that's what they say! Sure, he's quiet and quick and intelligent. But they also say he's dark and deadly. Unstable, unnerving, reckless verging on suicidal, dangerous, radioactive." Wolf finished, keeping his voice quiet. This was going to be harder than they thought.


	3. Chapter 2: Roommates

**Author's Note:** I know this took really long to put up, but I couldn't really get it where I wanted it. I'm still not very happy with it, but oh well. Thank you thank you thank you (!) to everyone who followed or favorited! Plus an extra couple to everyone who reviewed! You guys rock!

Warnings for this one: a little bit of language, but nothing crazy.

Oh! And I noticed everyone else had disclaimers on theirs, so... I do not own Alex Rider, nor any of these characters; I'm not making any money off of this story.

There you go.

P.S. I'm sorry in advance for the part from Alex's POV, not very fond of that bit, kind of an info dump :/ I might re-write it later.

* * *

Alex Rider sat at his desk, finishing his latest mission report. It was the normal stuff, though recently the normal stuff wasn't infiltrating schools as much as it was terrorist organizations and assassin training facilities. Blunt and Jones had long given up the pretense of using him only when there was no one else. Now that there wasn't anyone left to deport (or shoot), Blunt had to be more creative in his blackmail. He didn't have to use it often, as Alex had gotten out of the spy game once already, and there was no way in hell he was going to try again. Plus he got a salary now, not that he could force himself to care. Today, Blunt's offer was simple: have K-unit stay in his house, where Alex was in charge or send Alex to Brecon Beacons with K-unit, where Wolf would be in charge.

The bastard.

K-unit! Of all the people they could've called on, it had to be K-unit. Wolf had been the worst, he remembered, but the others did nothing to stop him. Ben had been okay in Australia, but that was a long time ago. Alex had heard that he was Fox again, had dropped out of MI6 not too long after their shared mission. The last time he'd seen Fox, Alex had been worrying about all the coursework he was going to have to catch up on. Thanks to MI6 and their tutors, he'd never have to worry about that again. There was also nothing stopping MI6 from sending him on missions as often as they liked. That wasn't going to go away.

The months with the tutor were nice, except for the fact that he quickly realized that they were moving much faster and working much harder than he ever had in school. _"Oh, Alex, why don't we help you catch up on your classes? You're such a bright boy, I'm sure it'll be easy. We'll send a tutor over."_ Apparently translates to:_ "Oh, Alex we're going to send a tutor over so you can skip a level or two and graduate early! Then no one will ask awkward questions when you're gone for months at a time!"_

Alex was being a _little_ bit unfair. He had asked Blunt to find a solution to the school problem after-

No, not going to think about that. Blunt had given him a solution. Doubling Alex's mission load had been the price.

He was rarely home these days, between missions and the hospital stays that always seemed to come after. He was currently on leave, not a familiar concept as he had never had one before. Blunt had promised not to call him in for at least a month, as the physical damage from his last mission was a bit more severe than Alex would like to admit. Namely extreme dehydration and starvation, coupled with an infected bullet wound and a few broken ribs. Alex insisted he was fine, Blunt said he wasn't going to lose his best agent to infection.

And so Alex was in his house in Chelsea. Out in the open. Where anyone could fairly easily find him. Hence K-unit. Memories from this house he kept locked up in his head were leaking out already. And he was going to have to be _nice_, wasn't he? Ugh. This was going to be the worst month of his life. And that was saying a lot.

God, he hated this house.

* * *

K-unit sat in the living room for hours. There wasn't a sound from upstairs in all that time. Honestly, they stayed in the living room because they were slightly afraid of setting off the boy upstairs. If anyone asked, they would've said that it was because the stairs were in the living room. If something were to happen upstairs they would be able to get to Cub quickly.

"I'm hungry." Eagle complained.

"Help yourself to anything in the kitchen." K-unit jumped. Cub was leaning against the countertop in the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Coffee? Yes, it was definitely coffee. Weird. "There's movies below the tely if you want to watch something." He walked through the living room and up the stairs, coffee mug in hand. No, walked wasn't the right word, he moved like a ghost, like he wasn't even touching the ground. Wolf was starting to get creeped out.

As soon as Cub was out of sight, Eagle jogged over to the kitchen. The others followed, not willing to pass on free food. Eagle reached the fridge first, opened it and gagged.

"Wolf! Look at this!" Eagle said, horrified. Wolf looked over Eagle's shoulder. The fridge was almost empty, but it had the basics, milk, eggs, orange juice, butter.

"What?" Eagle opened the jug of milk and lifted it to Wolf's nose.

"Ahhrgg!"

"Told you."

"What about the rest, anything salvageable?" Wolf asked.

"The OJ's three weeks past the experiation date, the butter should be okay. Honestly, I don't want to break open one of those eggs." Wolf grunted his agreement. Snake came up behind them.

"How's the fridge looking? The pantry's almost empty, only some canned soup and Saltines."

"Everything's gone bad except the butter."

"Seriously?" Snake asked, incredulous. Wolf nodded. "Soup and buttered crackers it is."

"Someone's gonna have to go shopping tomorrow."


	4. Chapter 3: Of Questions and Take-Out

**A/N: **Hi everyone! This was originally going to be two chapters, but they were kinda short so I threw them together into one big long monstrosity. Anyways, thank you again to everyone that read/reviewed (followed/favorited) the last chapter, I love you guys!

Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.

* * *

The next morning, Cub surprised everyone again by showing up in the kitchen without warning for his precious coffee.

"Who volunteers to open an egg?"

"Wouldn't do that if I were you, I think they've been in there for a couple months." Cub said, sipping coffee. The whole unit jumped about seven feet in the air. The kid's hair was all mused up and he was still wearing pajamas. And he still had gotten the jump on them. This was embarrassing. "There might be some Saltine's in the pantry." And with that he returned to his fortress of solitude. They sat around the kitchen for an hour or so until Fox finally got hungry enough.

"Wolf, can I have the keys? I'm going to the store."

"Blunt said we all have stay with Cub."

"Then we're all going to starve!"

"We'll just have to take him with us." Eagle said with determination. "I can't last much longer without food."

"Eagle, it hasn't even been a day."

"So?"

"How are we gonna ask him?"

"Ask me what?"

Once K-unit had landed, Wolf spoke up.

"Blunt said we can't leave unless you're with us-"

"And you don't have any food." Eagle finished.

"No thanks, got stuff to do." Cub said, pouring himself another cup of coffee.

"How much of that have you had?" Snake questioned.

"Hmmm… Today? I dunno, a cup or three." Snake looked at his watch.

"It's seven o'clock."

"And?" Cub said, his cup already half gone.

"That stuff stunts your growth, you know." Snake advised. Cub shrugged.

"Hasn't yet." It was true, now that Wolf thought about it, Cub was significantly taller than he had been at Brecon Beacons. Probably around the six foot mark.

"You know, Cub, you're still technically a member of K-unit." Snake said, changing the subject. Cub raised his eyebrows. "And that makes it my job to know of your physical health."

"No thanks." he answered casually. Wolf cleared his throat. He was up next.

"Blunt didn't tell us why you needed us here in the first place, can you at least tell us that?"

"I don't."

"You don't know?"

"I don't need you here."

"Then why are we here?" Wolf asked, baffled.

"'Cause Blunt seems to think that a few minor injuries make me incapable of protecting myself." Cub said, his voice was cool, but his eyes were dark.

"Like…?" Snake asked, casually. Cub sighed.

"I dunno, a couple broken ribs, some scrapes and bruises, took a shot to the shoulder. Nothing major." K-unit gaped at him. "What?"

"What?! A shot as in- as in a bullet!?" Snake sputtered. Cub looked at him like he was crazy.

"No, it was a football." Cub said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He poured himself another cup of coffee. "Anyways, I suppose it's the infection Blunt's worried about, not the hole."

Who the hell was this kid?!

"In-infection?!" Snake stuttered. If this went on much longer he was going to have an aneurism.

"Look, Snake, it's not a big deal, I'm fine." Cub said, wary now that he had caught on to Snake's reaction.

"How long has it been?"

"Almost a week." Snake looked as if he was about to blow up.

"Why aren't you in a hospital?"

"Why would I be? I was there for a whole day."

"How did you get released?!"

"I left."

"They just let you go!?"

"'Course they did, they always do." Cub winced as he realized what he had just let slip.

"Cub, exactly how many times have you gotten shot?" Wolf asked, concern winning over his dislike of the kid.

"No questions was one of the rules." Cub pointed out.

"I'm still technically your team leader."

"And I your medic." Snake added. Cub glared at them both.

"More than a few, less that a lot." He left them standing in the kitchen, starring at him as he walked quickly up the stairs. "No more questions!"

"I'm still hungry." Of course that would be Eagle's comment.

* * *

Cub didn't come down again for a few hours, if they hadn't all been waiting for him, they never would have noticed. Even so, they barely did. The kid was so quiet. He was halfway down the hall before Fox noticed him, and he was the first.

"Cub! Jeez, how do you do that?" Fox yelled. Wolf and the others just about jumped out of their skin. "Wait! You don't happen to have anymore food around here do you?" Cub rolled his eyes and beckoned for them to follow him. He brought them down into the basement and to a freezer in the corner. The basement was nice, all finished with a couch and a TV, tile floors.

"Don't know what's all in there, I think there's some frozen pizza." he said, walking to the other side of the room and through a doorway. Wolf opened the freezer, there was indeed some frozen pizzas, as well as some ground beef, French fries, and broccoli. Hmm. They really needed to get to the store.

"Seriously?" Eagle sighed. Cub snorted, K-unit jumped. This was happening way too often.

"I'm not here that much, so I don't keep much around. You guys can order take out if you want, I think there's a list of places in the kitchen." Wolf looked around, noticing for the first time the thin layer of dust coating the house.

"Cub?" Fox asked. "Are you okay?" Wolf looked at the kid, the smile had disappeared from his face and he was looking Eagle sitting on the couch like he was a ghost. "Cub?" He jumped.

"What?"

"I asked if you were okay."

"Oh, yeah, 'm fine." he said, a weird look on his face. "I never showed you where the bedrooms were, did I?"

"You have bedrooms?" Eagle practically yelled. "Are you telling me I slept on a couch for nothing?" Cub looked irritated. That didn't take long.

"There's one right there," he said, pointing to a door on the other side of the basement as he walked to the stairs. The SAS men followed him back upstairs and across the living room, where he pointed out another bedroom and the two bathrooms (in case they hadn't found them yet), then to the second floor where he got that funny look on his face again when Wolf opened the door to one of the three bedrooms.

"That's Ia-my office, and that's my room." Cub managed. Wolf looked at him out of the corner of his eye. There was something going on with the kid. "And there's another bathroom right there. I think that's everything."

"You said something about take-out?" Eagle asked hopefully.

"Oh, yeah." Cub turned back and went back down to the kitchen. He started rifling through the cupboards. "I know it's here somewhere… Here we go." He dropped a book on the counter, hesitating for a moment to look at it with that look in his eye again.

"I hope you're paying, Cub, cause I didn't have time to grab any cash."

"Me neither."

"Two quid." Snake added. Cub looked at Wolf. He shrugged.

"Sorry, kid."

"Seriously? How old are you guys?" Cub shook his head, shoving a hand in the pocket of his jeans. He tossed two scrunched up twenties on the counter. "Try not to spend it all." By the time Wolf looked up, Cub had already disappeared upstairs.

"You guys realize we just let the guy we're supposed to be protecting pay for our food, right?" Wolf asked.

"We have no pride. Oh well." Eagle said, snatching up the book. "Pizza or Chinese?"

"I kinda feel like Chinese. Does Cub like Chinese?" Fox wondered.

"I don't think he'd have three Chinese food places in his book if he didn't like it."

"Oh! Yeah, I guess."

"Look at this! Cub's handwriting is really girly." Eagle said, Wolf grabbed the book.

"Eagle! Do you know a single guy that writes in cursive?"

"Uhhh… no?"

"I don't think it's his hand writing."

"Wolf, no one else lives here."

"Wait a minute…"

"What?" Fox asked.

"Where's Cub's family?"

"Wolf, he's got to be like twenty-something, there's no reason why he can't live by himself."

"Yeah, but this house is way too big for one person."

"Rich kids always have big houses."

"No, rich kids have fancy downtown flats. Not big houses in the suburbs." Wolf said, frowning. The room was quiet.

"This is weird."

"Really weird." Snake agreed.


	5. Chapter 4: An Answer and a Phone Call

Sorry this took so long, with school starting back up I've been pretty busy. Anyway, thanks again to all you guys! Even with my ridiculously long break people have still been following and favoriting, so thank you so much! Yesterday was my birthday so I took some time to polish this up some. Hope you like it!

(Disclaimer is located at the beginning of the previous chapter, it includes the entire story.)

* * *

Wolf climbed the stairs while the rest of his unit opened up the cartons of Chinese food, stopping at Cub's door. He knocked. The door swung open.

"Hey, Cub. Food's here."

"I'm busy, I'll eat later." Cub said, closing the door in his face. Wolf stood stunned in the hallway. He knocked again. The door opened. "What?"

"Why does your doorbell play the Bond theme?"

"It was a gift." Cub answered, a dark look on his face. "Believe me, I've tried to change it." The door closed in Wolf's face again. He shook his head and walked back down the stairs to see his unit shoving food down their throats.

"Where's Cub?" Eagle asked through the beef and broccoli stuffed in his mouth.

"He say's he'll eat later, he's busy." Wolf said. Eagle shrugged.

Snake popped in a movie and K-unit kicked back and relaxed as much as they could.

* * *

Wolf woke suddenly, not sure why. He pulled back the covers slowly and got to his feet, careful not to let the floorboards creak. The floor creaked once as he walked down the hall and he paused, listening. There were quiet noises coming from the bathroom. That was stupid. Wolf thought. It's probably Snake or Cub. He stopped dead in his tracks as he looked through the bathroom door. Cub was on his knees, leaning over the toilet bowl with his elbows on the rim and his hands laced behind his head. He was shaking like a leaf. He started to look up, his eyes wide open. He'd seen that look somewhere before... Where?

"I'm fine, Ian, it's noth-" he stopped as he saw who was in the doorway, and rose with lightning speed, taking two big steps and closed the door in Wolf's face after snapping an "I'm fine.", his face blank as a slate. Wolf walked back to his room. Why didn't he just say he was sick? He thought back to Brecon Beacons. They hadn't been very nice to him, had they? This had to be hard on him, being sick while they were all in the house. He didn't look sick earlier. His eyes, though, something about his eyes...

It wasn't until he was falling asleep again that he realized what Cub had said.

_Who's Ian?_

* * *

The next morning saw Cub completely normal (for him) and not showing any signs of puking his guts out all night. He finally agreed to go to the store (grudgingly), letting K-unit buy whatever they wanted. It was odd how little he cared, Wolf thought. Or at least seemed to care.

The days turned into weeks, and the household fell into a rhythm. All five all met downstairs for breakfast each morning, then K-unit hung out, Cub disappearing to his office. Cub went running often, K-unit following behind. Wolf wondered each time at the relationship between Cub and his neighbors. Their reactions were always the same mixture of pity, fear, and anxiety, sometimes mixed with varying levels of thinly veiled hostility. Even more astounding was the fact that Cub could keep up with K-unit. This was even more remarkable considering the fact that he still had a healing bullet hole in his shoulder. Wolf had no doubt that fully healed, Cub could out-perform them all.

Cub hadn't warmed up to K-unit, staying firmly in the realm of polite hostility. Wolf had not come any closer to finding out what exactly was going on with K-unit's fifth member, but at least psychologically, there was definitely _something_ going on. Instead, more and more mysteries kept surfacing. Where was Cub's family? Why weren't there any pictures in his house? Who was Ian? How did a man of Cub's age come to be MI6's number one agent?

It was a morning just like any before, when the last question became even more ridiculous.

"So, I was thinking, we should go out tonight, maybe hit a bar?" Eagle said, stir crazy after being cooped up in the neighborhood for so long. Cub raised an eyebrow.

"Actually," Fox jumped in. "I think it's a good idea, you know, team bonding."

"Yeah," Wolf chuckled. "Nothing says "team bonding" like getting wasted." Cub's eyebrow rose even higher.

"Exactly how old do you think I am?" Heads swiveled to look at the youngest man.

"Oh, duh, you're not twenty-one yet?" Eagle said, apologetic. Everyone else was starring. That couldn't've been what Cub meant... right?

"You spend way too much time in America." Snake said, numbly.

"You're not eighteen." Wolf stated. "My God, you're not eighteen, are you?" Cub leaned back.

"Give me a number." Cub challenged. "Before this morning, how old did you think I was?" Wolf didn't meet his eye.

"Twenty-two." Snake said. "If I'd had to guess I would've said twenty-two."

"At least twenty."

"I dunno, twenty-one?"

"Wolf?" Cub questioned.

"Mid-twenties. Twenty-three, maybe?" Wolf mumbled.

Cub sipped his coffee. Finally, he said: "Seventeen. I turn seventeen on Friday." The room exploded.

"What-?"

"How-?"

"Wait a min-?"

"But that means-?"

"YOU WERE ONLY FOURTEEN AT BRECON BEACONS?"

That was Wolf.

Cub just sat there, drinking his coffee.

"You didn't know?" he asked, his voice careless.

"Of course we didn't know! God, Cub! We were- we were-"

"Assholes? Yeah, you were." Cub said coolly, standing up and walking toward the stairs.

"Wait, Cub!" Snake said. Cub stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"What the hell do you want?"

"We need to talk about this!"

"Do we?" Cub asked, back to playing casual. "I really don't think so." And with that he disappeared up to his room.

* * *

When he still hadn't come out after two days, K-unit started to get nervous. They couldn't protect him if they didn't know what he was doing!

"We have to call MI6. Get his file or something, if there's really someone after him that warrants a whole unit, he could be dying up there as we speak!" Wolf reasoned, pacing.

"He won't like it. Us calling the heads." Fox sat at the table, looking nervous as well.

"I don't care, it's the only solution." Wolf decided, grabbing a phone and roughly punching in the number.

"This is James Carter. We need to talk."

"_Ahh yes, I rather thought you would've called sooner. What did he do this time?_" Tulip Jones' voice was business-like with a touch of exasperation. Wolf didn't like her. He put it on speaker in response to the silent but expressive hand motions he was getting from his unit.

"Umm… he locked himself in his bedroom."

"_Has it been three days yet?_"

"No."

"_Well, he'll be fine until then. Unfortunately, Rider doesn't have much of a sense of self-preservation. If it gets to three days break the door down and make him drink something._" K-unit were silent completely in shock. "_Ah… he told you about his birth year, yes?_" Wolf cleared his throat.

"Mrs. Jones, Cu-Agent Rider has not told us anything of what might be coming. Can you?" The woman chuckled.

"_What might be coming? Just about every terrorist organization in the world. What probably will come? A few low class terrorist cells, nothing to really worry about. Rider's capable of looking after himself._"

"If I may ask then, ma'am, why are we even here?"

"_What have you noticed about him?_" she started. "_He's always getting the jump on you, correct? But every once in a while, it's like he's seeing right through you, completely unaware that you're there._" She took K-unit's stunned silence for an answer. "_Has he even gone so far as to think you're someone else? Called you Jack or Ian? Maybe even Tom?_"

"Yeah." Wolf said quietly, thinking about that first night. "He has."

"_Which one?_"

"Umm, Ian, I think." Wolf said, trying to remember.

"_It would be Ian, of course. You look like him._" Mrs. Jones sighed. K-unit looked at each other in bewilderment. "_You should be careful, Alex has good reflexes. He's an "ask questions later" sort of person. I wouldn't surprise him if I were you._"

"Mrs. Jones," Snake jumped in. "We're running on nothing here, can we get a hold of his file somehow?"

"_He won't appreciate it, but I'll send a copy over. Is that all?_"

"Why are we here?" Fox asked bluntly.

"_He won't see a psychiatrist. I honestly don't know what kind of state he's in, but I doubt it's a good one. There's a reason he doesn't like being on leave, I don't know if he has too much time to think or if it's just that house, but I'm concerned. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid._" Jones hung up.

"Was that a suicide warning?" Snake asked quietly.

"Yeah," Fox said, his voice faint. "I think it was."

* * *

Sooooo, what do you think? Is Alex too mysterious? Fox too boring? Bonus points to whoever can guess who gave Alex his security system!


End file.
